Category: Identity

Today’s podcast discusses the ups, downs, and outs of the problem of pain. Without problems to solve, life would get dull fairly quickly, but when you don’t know to address problems productively, then all you get from them is stress, anxiety, and depression. Adding one more secret ingredient changes everything, so listen up and find out what it is!

With practice, you’ll develop the one character trait that makes life easier and more enjoyable, despite challenges.

Today’s podcast asks whether you’re living an inspiring life, then explains how to do that by choosing the better of the two motivations (hint: I’m not referring to love and fear). You also get a story of walking with young pioneers in disappointingly pleasant weather and you’ll learn a little bit about self actualization.

P.S. one of the “family” groups spent much of their walking time solving riddles, so I made up a brand new one. See how quickly you can figure this out:

I carry life on my back between the stars,
I’ll fight you both ways, my arms against yours.
No matter how far you walk, or how fast you run,
We’ll never reach our next destination.

A handcart. It carries your survival gear. The wheels and spokes are like stars. Both ways = uphill and down. Our next destination is the horizon, and we’ll never reach it because it keeps moving farther away….

It seems like everybody’s addicted to their smart phones these days, and we feel as if we’d suffocate if we can’t sneak a quick glance to check our messages and new likes. Some of us are addicted to food, shopping, gambling, video games, drugs, porn, and other substances/activities that momentarily soothe our nerves.

This happens because of neurotransmitter rewards. In other words, each time we get a new like or take another hit of our favorite “drug,” our brain rewards us with a quick shot of dopamine. That hit – the message, food, new shoes, etc. – isn’t what we’re actually addicted to, it’s the dopamine. All those activities are merely methods to stimulate its release.

What would happen to our world if we became addicted to loving behavior instead? To kind words, generous gestures, acts of courage and nobility, healthy self care, kindness, acceptance, and spiritual growth?

Your Love is my Drug

It just so happens that love is the original drug, and one of the most powerful drugs in the universe – or rather, it releases many of the most powerful drugs, like dopamine, inside us. All other drugs or addictions are mere substitutes when available supply of the real thing gets too low, or the “price” climbs too high.

Getting addicted to love is simple: the more loving acts you commit, the more happiness floods your system, and the more your brain learns, “Hey, I LIKE that! Let’s do it again!!!”

Romantic Love is Not Enough

To be crystal clear on which “type” of love I’m suggesting, I don’t recommend addiction to sex, hookups, or mere romantic love alone – not if it’s not tied to a genuine loving relationship. Sex without love provides only momentary pleasure, followed by a more enduring sense of separation and possible brain-structure damage when sex hormones are abused excessively.

If you’re lucky enough to fall in love and begin a healthy relationship, the addiction happens automatically as your brain floods continually with dopamine and other bliss-inducing neurochemicals. A broken heart comes from the very real pain of separation and withdrawal from all those natural happy drugs.

So if you’re in love – great! I envy you. Take good care of that relationship. And don’t settle for only romantic love, because eventually, it must settle into deeper mature love, so begin those habits now.

It’s All About Da Bond

As for addiction to non-romantic love and connection, science has already proven its efficacy. For example, you may have read this popular article in the Huffington Post. Author Johann Hari quotes Professor Peter Cohen arguing that

human beings have a deep need to bond and form connections. It’s how we get our satisfaction. If we can’t connect with each other, we will connect with anything we can find — the whirr of a roulette wheel or the prick of a syringe. We should stop talking about ‘addiction’ altogether, and instead call it ‘bonding.’ A heroin addict has bonded with heroin because she couldn’t bond as fully with anything else.

How to Connect

It’s a sign of the times that how-to-bond-with-people requires explanation. We may spend plenty of time near others, we may have hundreds of Facebook friends, we may share what seem like intimate details such as exotic vacation photos, bathroom-mirror selfies, even what we ate for lunch, yet still feel isolated and alone.

So here’s how it’s done; here’s how to make connection addictive: simply make it good, and make it real.

That is, take a risk and LOVE.

Ask a genuine question and listen attentively to the answer, then ask follow up questions to prove that you were listening and you’re honestly interested and not just waiting for your turn to talk. Make people feel interesting and important by showing interest in them, in their thoughts and feelings. Make them feel safe enough to open up and be real.

Accept people exactly as they are, then encourage and support growth if they’re open to the idea.

Make eye contact. The eyes truly are the window to the soul and that’s where the most valuable connection can be found. If eye contact makes you uncomfortable, that resistance reveals that your vulnerability lies just beyond that wall of discomfort – push through your fear until you strike gold.

Share your honest feelings, even when it scares you to become so vulnerable and transparent. Share your dreams, your fears, and express your true passions. There can be no avoiding this requirement. There’s no way around it. It’s impossible to connect if you don’t open up and show your true heart.

Get Going

See? It’s not so hard! You can do this! After all, it’s not so different from the safe, sterile distance of social media: just like, comment, and share – only this time, do it in person and share more of the true you than you’re accustomed to. As you do, you’ll discover that Face to Face can prove far more rewarding and addictive than Facebook. You’ll be happy you did.

And sometimes, you won’t. Sometimes you’ll just feel nervous and scared or intimidated; silly, embarrassed, and even humiliated. Love yourself and everyone else enough to face your fears and keep on connecting anyway. Set a good example and hope it goes viral, even if you can’t measure your influence on a website.

Now get to work. Call up a friend (text if you must) and schedule a get together, or begin with the stranger sitting next to you on your commute. Greet a neighbor and find something in common.

Help an old lady across the street – maybe someone will record you on their phone and you’ll become an internet sensation! When you do, you’ll remember that the genuine, authentic, real, in-person, first-hand experience trumped whatever shallow value that shallow, weak, internet connections can offer.

And next time you feel the urge to check your messages, maybe you’ll phone someone instead, or look up and deliver an IS (Instant Smile) to whoever walks by.

SLIDER

Where do you fall on the “Addicted to Love” love slider?

1: You’re wrong! Social media (or drugs, porn, music, etc.) is better than real-life connection! Wait, I mean, social media (or drugs, porn, music, etc.) IS real life! The only reason to even consider your opinion is that your site has 12,000 likes.

3: I’d love to love and feel loved, but I’ve been hurt and it’s too scary to open up and trust and connect, so don’t ask me to try!

5: I WOULD RATHER JUMP OFF A CLIFF than open up and connect with people… but… maybe… someday, I’ll give it a little try. Just not yet.

7: I’m trying to be more open, vulnerable, and loving both online and in person, and even though it scares me a little, I’ll keep going.

10: I love myself and everybody so much that I often say and do kind things and enjoy genuine connections everywhere I go!

11. Going to extremes: there’s nothing inherently wrong with social media, so you don’t need to delete all your accounts unless you’re truly addicted and that’s the only way to break free. Social media is what you make of it, so show more love and vulnerability there, too.

FOR DISCUSSION

When was the last time you stepped a little outside of your comfort zone to do something loving? How did it make you feel? Did it make you want to do it again?

When was the last time you let yourself be vulnerable and you got hurt or it didn’t turn out well? What lessons did you learn from that experience – did you decide to give up or are you willing to keep trying?

HOMEWORK

Start thinking nice things about everyone you see. When you feel brave enough, say them out loud. See how people respond to unexpected love.

Spend F2F (face to face) time with someone you don’t usually see or improve the quality of time you spend by inserting small acts of love. See how you like it and observe how others respond – immediately and over time.

I once heard a story wherein a fairy had become entangled in a hedge. A kind girl set her free and the fairy granted her a wish.

“I want to always be happy,” the girl declared, at which the fairy flitted up to her shoulder and whispered something in her ear. The girl looked surprised, and the fairy flew away, never to be seen again.

Well, the girl lived a long, satisfying life, and her wish came abundantly true. The tale of the fairy’s wish circulated among her family and friends, but no one knew what the fairy had whispered in her ear.

As she lay dying with her adoring family gathered around her hospital bed, a granddaughter took her hand and asked what several of them had wondered for years. “Grandma, what did the fairy tell you that made you so happy all your life?”

The old woman turned toward her granddaughter and caressed her cheek lovingly. “She told me,” she said slowly, “‘Everyone needs you.’”

With that, she closed her eyes, expelled a final breath, and passed from this life with a contented smile on her face.

When you understand that everyone does need you, when you start looking for what you can give and how you contribute to the lives around you by simply being yourself rather than imagining their criticisms and complaints, then you let love instead of fear permeate your life, and that guarantees more love and abundance than any outward blessing could ever accomplish.

1: Nobody needs me. In fact, the world would be better off if I didn’t exist.

3: Sure, people need me, but only for the work I do, and anybody could replace me if I was gone.

5: Some people sorta need me, but they don’t really care about me. They just use me because I’m convenient.

7: Only my close friends need and love me. That’s good enough.

10: Everybody needs me whether they know it or not. They’d be okay without me, but their world would be diminished without me to brighten it up!

11. Going to extremes: some people glean their sense of value from being needed. They continually check how others react to them (and project their worries onto others) and how many “likes” they get on Facebook to determine whether they’re safe and accepted. Your sense of value should be intrinsic for best effect. Accept yourself unconditionally and go forward from there.

FOR DISCUSSION

What’s your most valuable contribution to the world? How does with your mere presence influence others?

How could loving yourself more make you even more important and needed to others?

HOMEWORK

Serve strangers in small or large ways and notice the difference you make. What would happen if everyone did that?

Explanations about how love works are all fine and good, but ideas don’t make much difference until you put them into action. That’s what love languages are all about.

bit.ly/lovelangs

Love languages is an idea popularized by Gary Chapman’s books that identify five specific ways that people show love, based on what they value. Some people give gifts, others say nice things, share quality time, do acts of service, or communicate affection through physical touch.

When two people don’t speak the same language, it’s helpful to observe how the other person expresses love. Then you can both notice more readily the messages being sent, and try expressing your affection in those terms so your partner will more clearly understand how you feel.

It’s also important to communicate – let your partner know how you communicate love and how you like to receive it. Otherwise you may totally miss the messages being sent and feel unappreciated for your efforts even though each of you may be doing your best.

Love languages reveal the method by which people prefer to express love, but that’s only the first step. How often and thoroughly those messages are spoken is even more important.

For example, if you understand love via gifts, do you prefer expensive ones or thoughtfully chosen ones more?

If you appreciate quality time, what does that mean to YOU? Do you prefer quality conversation, exciting adventures, or creating something together? How much does constantly checking your phone detract from that time?

If physical touch is your thing, then how long your massage lasts speaks volumes.

Your words and actions when you’re not communicating love also matter immensely. If one minute you say, “I love you!” (whether with words, gifts, touch, etc.) and the next minute, you’re criticizing, complaining, being angry or impatient, etc., those negative messages will undermine and can entirely erase your good intentions.

SLIDER

Where do you fall on the “Love Languages” love slider?

1: If people don’t love me the way I want and expect, then I’m blind to whatever they’re trying to communicate. I don’t believe they really love me, or they’re not very good at it!

3: If someone really loves me, they’ll learn to love my love language best. If they don’t, I’ll find a new relationship where love doesn’t require so much effort!

5: It’s so sad to speak separate love languages! We’ll never fully understand or appreciate each other, and it’s annoying to have to try!

7: Speaking other love languages is sometimes inconvenient, but it’s important to try, and it’s worth it!

10: I like my love languages best, but becoming bilingual sounds like a fun challenge.

11. Going to extremes: In your desire to make the right impression and please someone, don’t deny or lose yourself. Don’t forget who you are and become someone else in order to please someone so they’ll love you back and you can feel secure. You may fool them for a while, but

FOR DISCUSSION

How do you most often show love? How do you like to be shown when someone cares for you?

Do you think that your love language is the best one?

How do you think speaking different love languages would affect the quality of a relationship?

HOMEWORK

Look around at how people express love and affection and see if you can figure out their love language. Notice whether they send you any messages of love in their language.

Once you have a guess regarding someone’s love language, try speaking it. Make it a fun challenge, as if you were learning another language in preparation for an overseas vacation. See how fluent and comfortable you can become!

If you’re in a relationship, ask your partner what they like best that you do for them.

What moments have changed your life’s direction, for better or worse? What events shaped your future and turned you into the person you are now? Have you ever created major changes in life without some external impetus to force your hand?

What if you could change anything about your life right now? What would you change? Think it over!

One of the most important traits you can develop is confidence. It makes you more attractive. It gives you the courage to live your dreams. It smooths out dozens of small bumps in the road of life and helps you progress much faster toward your inherent potential.

With that in mind, here are a few stories of confidence-related pivotal moments to help you process the concept. PLEASE SHARE your own pivotal moments in the comments sections below! Everyone would love to hear and learn from them.

A Scout is…Confident?

I went to scout camp the summer before 9th grade, and sitting around the fire one afternoon, Coy started spitting watermelon seeds at me as he ate. Coy was one of the “cool” kids and I was not. After several seeds, something in me snapped – something small at first, then bigger. “If you spit one more seed at me,” I warned, “I’ll beat the crap out of you.” Coy calmly took another bite of melon, chewed, then spit a seed at me. Read more “Pivotal Moments: Confidence”→

Spring is in the air, and with it, people all around you are falling in love – including yourself.

Lucky you! Congratulations! The ecstatic bliss you now feel is the most joyous experience you’ve ever known. The sun shines brighter, birds sing more sweetly, and you’re about to live happily ever after!

But hold on for just a second – because you just realized how utterly sappy all that sounds to everybody else who’s not in love, and how much you sound like a Disney princess, which you know – or at least you used to know – is not exactly realistic.

So which is it? Are you in love or aren’t you? Will you live happily ever after or are you setting yourself up for heart break? Does True Love exist or is it only an appealing myth? You’d like to know for certain so you can plan accordingly.

We discuss how this reveals an important way to love yourself by not putting up with your brain’s silly doubting games and swap that in for unapologetic belief in yourself and devotion to your well being.

I’ve been working on writing my next book, which will be one of the best and most important things I’ve ever created. It’s (tentatively) called Basic Intuitive Energy Healing ::: Heal Your Mind ::: A Scientific Approach to Speaking your Brains’ Languages and Turning Pain into Power and it includes over 50 simple yet highly effective healing techniques that you can use on yourself (or if you’re already a skilled energy healer, you can apply them to others for good effect).

I’ve been wanting to write it for about ten years, but the time wasn’t right until now. In hindsight, the reason is obvious – I thought I knew a lot ten years ago, and I did, but I’ve learned so much just in the past year that the book will now be far more complete and useful than it would have been then.

Here’s the introductory story which gives a general idea of what the book is about, and stay tuned as I reveal more details soon!

Once upon a time, you found yourself wandering through a deep, dark woods. You didn’t know exactly where you were headed, but hurried along the path just the same, hoping to escape the unpleasant shadows and the too-cool breeze that made you wrap your arms tightly around yourself and shiver.
Out from the darkness came distant, unpleasant voices in faint, scarcely-audible whispers. “You’re not good enough,” they said, “why even try? You’re a fool if you think you’ll ever be happy again!”
“Nobody loves you,” others murmured. “You’re all alone. You’ll always be alone.”
You pretended to ignore the voices as you hurried along, but deep inside, you knew they were right. Read more “Heal Your Mind”→

I recently came across this inspiring letter written by a new teacher and she gave me permission to share it here:

So, I’m a brand-new 7th grade English teacher. I work in a school where something like 80% of the kids live below the poverty line. Many of them have families who are barely making it. Many of them wear the same clothes to school multiple days in a row. For many of them, school lunch is the only meal they will eat that day. Many of their parents struggle with drugs, alcoholism, or are incarcerated.

And here I am, some 25-year-old white girl who saw Freedom Writers and wanted to make a difference. Want to know a secret? Some days, I feel like I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing. Read more “Thank a Teacher”→

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Identity Matters

How you see yourself – your worth, personality, abilities, and your core – influences your quality of life more than any other concept, so it’s worth your time to give it a tune up!

Your sense of identity tells you where you belong in society, how much money you will earn, how much love you deserve, and what efforts will or won’t work out.

The good news is that your sense of identity is flawed and your true identity is much, much better than your limited sense of identity. The following articles help you understand your identity and what you can do about it better. The clearer your sense becomes, the more effortlessly and naturally you'll gravitate toward your real potential.